Thinking About Branding

To me, branding on a personal level is putting things in categories to make choices easier. On a marketing level, its associating yourself with something to help consumers make that choice. Ultimately, its a decision making tool. Just like freinds, brands are the company you keep and sometimes, how you are judged.

I agree with your list.

Some companies merge or release a new product under a sister company or a completely different name so that the main brand isn't associated with it to get around those brand issues.

I worked with a company who merged with another rather big and well known company and they didn't tell the general public. They even compete against each other in the SE's and stuff.

If Microsoft launched baby food under "binary baby care" as a brand, people would probably buy it. Maybe if the name was better :)

Interesting question.

I believe you are correct, there are expectations for behavior once you have an established brand. That is why so many businesses must "rebrand" if they shift from their original product/service.

I think it can be best summed up with this: Branding conveys identity. Identity conveys the expected behavior.

Chris,

When American expats walk past McDonalds full of Americans, they call it "tourists going to church". It's absolutely certain that a brand name carries the expectations. Think of American Express and what that conveys. McDonalds expectations are maybe a little broken in foreign lands as experts tell me the "Coke doesn't taste the same" and pof course the famous comment by Travolta in Pulp Fiction about them serving red wine.

Managing expectations is a great way to think of it. A lot of the "older" brands almost branded themselves into a niche. They had "over x billion sold" or chewy goodness or whatever. Some new brands - like Apple and Google - branded their companies more so than their products. This allows them to do a lot of different things. At this point, if Apple or Google built a car or a restaurant or something out of the box - I'd give it a shot because they branded themselves within that framework without including that specific intent. It's the metamorphosis of what branding has become but you hit it on the head with the managing of people's expectations.

I agree but I think people can be conditioned to change their behavior associated with a brand. That is usually a very slow process and the shift from area to area is either very closely related (Google + Android) or poles apart. e.g. Google + Alternate energy (still technology). What if McDonalds were to buy Greyhound/PeterPan and maintain brand integrity? Does that change anything? Both still convey "budget".

I think of branding as the "pavlov's law" of business. It is training your customers to think of you in a certain way. It takes time, but if that message is consistent, it makes it easy for your customers to know what to expect from your business.

Branding is more that just what your expected behavior is, in my opinion is the feeling that is invoked when you hear of a company's name. A brand should be, to a degree, emotional. You know what you are going to get, you don't want to fly McDonalds Airline because the brand is fast, cheap, food - and sloppiness is allowed and expected given the price.

Branding, I think is just one part of the experience. Think Zappos, they use social media to reach out to new and existing customers which is part of their brand. Apple's advertisements of the iPhone apps out there show that the people with Apple products are cool, creative and on the cutting edge. These are are part of the brand's experience (as is the Apple store and calling Zappos).

Good brand stand for something. When they stand for something, these brands set expectations in our heads.

I expect McDonald's to deliver the same food (which I like) in a clean, friendly, safe environment.

I expect FedEx to get packages delivered overnight.

The best brands do not set-up situations of cognitive dissonance for people. In other words, they behave the way we expect them to.

Some brands (like Virgin) have permission to do lots of different things because that is out expectation.

One thing we do a lot of is online anthropology research to discover what people believe to be

1. important in a category
2. true about the brands in the category

If you can market well to something important in the category and that people already believe to be true, you are starting out way ahead of the game.

TO'B

With social media, branding is a good conversation. Before, branding was a good speech.

Your expectations do lead into the brand, and in today's market, it's about how that brand reacts or proactively addresses new ideas that determines if a brand comes to life, or is just a bundle of associations you have about a product/service.

In my opinion, branding serves many purposes. Name recognition is at the forefront, but association is equally important. Association can take many forms. I may associate one brand with quality and another with low cost. There is also sensory association as well. When I think about my favorite pizza parlor (by brand), my sense of taste is stimulated in a positive fashion.

A brand does also tend to draw a box around itself and I think that this plays into management of a brand's behavior.

I'll have to give this more thought - very interesting subject!

I agree with you when you start talking about expectations of behavior. And this goes two ways. Brands do not only speak about the product, service or company and bring up levels of expectation, they also speak about the people who choose those brands.

A significant percentage of our Power Profiling methodology for B2C customers focuses on the brands people choose to associate themselves with. In other words, the brands you choose speaks a lot about the person you are.

It is this relationship that makes creating a brand valuable and should be the focus of marketing and communications.

Chris,

Good questions. I would say you're right on - branding is the creation, management, and support of the emotional association consumers have with a particular brand. Is that emotional attachment or gut feeling positive or negative? That question is answered by how effective the branding initiatives are.

The ultimate goal is to shift people's habits and loyalties from a competing brand to your brand - and you do that through building a positive brand experience across all touchpoints.

To use "conversational marketing" speak, branding should be an outward expression of your authentic self. It should say: here's who I am, here's what I do, and this is what I stand for. When I think of Google, I think: search, advertising, wildly profitable, don't be evil. When folks invested (in one way or another) in the Google brand perceived their business practices in China, for example, as being incompatible with their "don't be evil" values, they were taken to task for it.

Brands are empty vessels until filled with the expressions of an entities authentic self. It's why defining who you are, what you do and what you stand for is so essential to then defining and promoting that thing called brand. If you do this well, your brand can be your most valuable asset.

Yes, I think the idea of "behavioral expectation" makes sense, or maybe another way to look at is a promise of what to expect. And here's a kicker my friend @shawnwood added, it's also the emotional aftertaste left following an experience.

If an organization promises one thing but delivers another, (that doesn't meet or exceed expectations) the brand is actually damaged.So it goes beyond setting expectations & involves the execution/follow through.

Look forward to hearing where you land on this stuff.

Dawn Nicole

I think about branding more like the culture surrounding the name.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you about not flying "McDonalds Airlines" I think there would be a great deal of people who would think that flying "Coca Cola Airlines" would be really cool. Maybe because they'd let you skydive from the plane if you wanted :)

So in this sense, culture is a unique blend of different behaviors which makes it for what it is.

Branding is definitely about managing expectations, guiding the consumer or clients idea of what they can expect when they work with you or use your products.

Imagine, everyone wants a television. They purpose is to simply transmit images for you to enjoy. What varies is the pull one feels towards Toshiba or Sony or GE, the evangelicals you trust when asking for an opinion about each and that is what pulls us in the direction towards one over the other.

There's no difference between branding a service or product. The principles are the same.

It is all about expectations of the consumer/client and those created by the deliverer of those services or products.

How can branding be a behavioral expectation? Only after the fact: one cannot expect anything until you become familiar with what it is/can do in the first place. Before that, it's hope – at best. Of course a much-loved brand will entice behavior (and with that, expectation). Naturally, if an identity his the mark on (experiential) semantic expectations (i.e. warm and fuzzy for baby clothes), then the whole experience is a pleasant one for the consuming human. Just a thought.

You asked if branding is "Managing people’s expectations of our brand’s behavior?"
I think branding is managing the brand's behavior to align it with people's needs and expectations.

There are behaviors that will feel "natural" to the brand because they fall within the people's perception of what the brand stands for.

The most elegant articulation I've ever heard about branding is "a brand is a promise." It's a consistently delivered product or service that becomes predictable and expected FROM THE CONSUMER'S STANDPOINT and based on what THEY value. There was an interesting study a while back (apologies for not having a link) where McDonald's did an assessment of their brand. One item (promise) that bubbled to the top of the list was "clean restrooms." They did it so well (without realizing it) and so consistently that folks on the road viewed it as part of their value proposition. Clearly an unexpected "brand" yet there was value in the insight because McDonald's could incorporate "clean" into its brand messaging and have credibility doing so.

Net net - what do you promise? What do you deliver? Do you do it consistently? Do consumers recognize and value it? If so and if you're aware of what those promises are, integrating that messaging into your branding and marketing efforts (traditional, online, social media, etc.) becomes relatively easy. I hope this is helpful.

A few years ago, everyone was saying 'we won't accept gmail, yahoo, or hotmail accounts', because they were so heavily laden with spammers.
Internet marketing coaches taught;
"Don't use a free email if you want to be taken seriously".

What has happened since?

Gmail, the brand [Google] just continued to say what they were. (Of course in the back ground they attacked spam with technology).
As a brand, they excitedly released updates to their ahem,
"beta" email program, and tacitly included in their language, "we'll be the only one you need".

Hotmail, which was a historic phase of the internet
in it's own right, and Yahoo! mail which is embarrassingly always the bridesmaid, never the bride,
are increasingly becoming irrelevant.

At the current pace, the brand "gmail" will represent in peoples minds, everything they ever expected from email, and more than they ever envisioned.
One word will sum up the personal web portal for millions within a few years; "gmail".

WHY?

All brands have their limitations of what they can evolve to. I agree that I wouldn't fly McDonalds Air, but I would jump on Google Air in a heartbeat or stay at Apple Hotels, or attend Microsoft University.

I think everyone has an evoked set of descriptive words that come to mind when they hear a brand name or see a brand. And this evoked set is created from brand experiences they have had, either first hand, through word of mouth or through media. This is definitely related to behavior.

A brand managers job imo is to understand the current accepted brand behavior, know where they want to take the brand and champion the steps necessary to take the brand and consumer expectations in that direction. Actions (customer service, retail layout, r&d, social responsibility), communications (advertising, pr), branding (logo, colour palette, verbage used, etc) all play a part in creating brand behavior that allows you to evolve the organization along with consumer expectations in a profitable and sustainable direction.

Chris -- I think you're right on with your "expectation of behavior." What you're really saying is that your brand is a PROMISE. It can be promise of quality or consistency or low prices or wait-on-you-hand-and-foot service or social cache or flavor or value or environmental responsibility or healthy or just plain old cool.

Great branding is delivering on that promise in everything you do. It should be inherent in your advertising, customer communications, stores, your web presence... and right on down to your business cards, fax cover sheets and on-hold music.

You may not want to fly McDonald's airlines... but without experiencing it first-hand, can you possibly have a true branding perception on it?

Yeah, I'm one of those guys who believe branding is the experience you have interacting with a product or service or haircut... whatever it may be.

I agree. I'm the person that still thinks 3M or Reliant or Minute Maid Stadium is a sick idea. Might as well start naming residential streets after companies. The economics work but the relatedness falls out. NO ONE is attached to MInute Maid Park like they were attached to Shea Stadium when it was decrepit.

So branding as a commitment or statement of behavioral intention... or as an invitation for a kind of behavior from customers, that would be a great consideration when considering the brand. I wonder how often it's actually considered.

Best,

Mary Remar
Hillhouse

I know that some people would welcome an airline that serves only McDonalds food, and for some airlines this would be a big step up from the crappy food, or no food options. A big yellow and red plane would be catchy and i guess you could compare it to AirTransat with comfort food.

Any first brain fart or cognitive dissonance that people experience with a brand name or function, or new business development can be overcome with a lot of PR, marketing, and good customer feedback.

Look at the "mighty ducks" for a hockey team... that is the stupidest name ever... yet somehow, from a snowless region as well, put together an NHL team, and got a fan base. eeeesh!

that makes me believe people would even fly a "mighty duck" airline ?

For me, the answer is in your last question with just a little twist: Harnessing customers'/prospects' perceptions, feelings, and opinions of our brand’s expectations by mastering delivery. Your brand pillars have to align with your brand's expectations or your customer becomes confused, feels jilted, and/or finds a better fit with another brand. If your brand doesn't align with expectations, you don't give your customer an experience to promote, you give them one to complain about or walk away from feeling as if they wasted their time and money.

We, as brands, set the expectations, we need to deliver on them. For instance, let's say one of your brand pillars is "customer focus" and your brand personality/message for that pillar is "simple and easy to do business with." If your product installation is a tedious 13 step process with 7 pages of "make me go to sleep" directions in 6pt type - how's your delivery jive with your brand message?

The misstep between reality and perception typically occurs when we, as brands, forget the customer's voice/response (expectation given the message we promoted) in our delivery.

I agree. And I think that most of the folks commenting do too, even if not explicitly. Branding--or a "Brand"--is the promise a company makes to its consumers. "I promise to be 'X' for you." Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail; be we decide that based on what we expect from the brand.

You do not want to fly McDonalds Airlines ... because they haven't tried to modify your expectations of their behavior. But many of us would fly Virgin Atlantic. Expectation of behavior.

That there are many components to branding, and the overall development of a Brand, does not negate the fact that each of those play a role in shaping (or trying to shape) our expectations of how the Brand behaves.

Here's my take. Branding creates an expectation of SENSATION on my part, experience on my part -- not the behavior of the brand. Maybe this is just semantics. Branding works because humans are ego-driven creatures. If a brand has resonated with "me," it's because something about that product or service fills a need that I will no longer have to overtly think about.

I usually prefer the concept of "brand is a gut feeling "they have". Don't know were i've read it.

So, "they" have a gut feeling of microsoft as a grey tecnological thing, wich is not very tastefull if you think food as a "grey tecnological thing". Probably would work as an airplane company. Unexpected behaviour? Isn't in your list, at least...

hope that helps you in someway... and mail me if you want!

Isn't a brand, - any old brand - the idea of a brand, a recognition tool. A Brand doesnt have value inferences in the sense of good or bad. The expectations you speak of come from inter-relationship with the things the brand stands for. Tigers can be bad around a nursery, good in a zoo and excellent in a story. A brand in its self has no expectations. The particular expectations which grow from brands are more like relationships. Branding as a verb from a marketing point of view may include behaviour control but the total phenomenon of branding including its effects on the public, is more like a relationship then behvioural control. Why? Because it is a two-way interaction. Both parts effect each other's behaviour.

For me branding covers the whole spectrum - setting your customers expectations on behaviour, quality, the market you are in and the products/services offered. If done well, you set your stall out and see what that means in terms of the demographics that your brand appeals to.

I always think that if you constantly change to try and fit in with what you think people want, you are on a slippery slope. Best to stick with promoting what you are about and get that entrenched.

If I could remember, McDonalds did try to go into the hotel industry before. No doubt that even though it made some money, it wasn't really a successful venture.

Their brand had been established towards the fast food industry, and also gearing up for a more healthier image.

There's an expectation from consumers and the market to the various brands that the companies set out to create in the first place. It's up to the businesses to deliver (and exceed) those expectations that the brand held.

Consumers have a natural urge to brand things, this is why we respond so well when smart companies provides us with a credible and emotive brand construct.

When companies do not develop a solid brand idea, consumers will brand them anyway - on their own terms - and often in a way that doesn't enhance the company's image.

The definition I've found most interesting lately is that "a brand is the summation of the conversations being had about an experience"... which would of course help set the behavioral expectation.

"Is?" A brand "is" the person/company/organization etc. I don;t think a brand "is" an expectation or a promise- but I do think it creates expectations and promises, in that you define your brand by everything from tone to words to actions to even color of the logo.

So, I say the brand is not "is" - the brand "creates" -

This isn't specific to your question Chris, but to share a brand experience I recently had and my expectations...

I bought a new TV this week. I went for a Samsung product. I'm no expert in electronics brands and the quality of their products, but Samsung had registered a few brand positives with me prior to purchase: 1) I already have one of their phones that serves me well and feels nice; 2) I have noticed they are very competitive on price, yet the quality of their stuff seems equal to more expensive brands according to consumer reviews; 3) I associate them - through sports and music sponsorship - with some classy other brands.

So I opened my new TV. It looks great. It works well. So far I am happy with everything about it and Samsung has scored well again. With one exception.

The batteries supplied for use with the remote - the only non-Samsung branded item in the package - were the cheapest, crappiest batteries you get. Called something like "Golden Power". I know this often happens, but these batteries are particularly nasty.

Not a big deal on one level (they may even work okay) but in terms of brand, Samsung instantly lost several points in my mind. Everything I understood of their brand to this moment was suddenly compromised by an association - a strong, physical association - with Golden Power batteries.

It crossed my mind that a fraction of the millions they have spent on associations with quality should have gone on wrapping some Samsung branding round some white label batteries.

We don't get to manage expectations. Customers do. We can hope really hard that if we say out loud what our brand stands for and we back it up again and again over the years and across the globe with every single point of contact, then a customer might expect what we want them to from our brand.

But if we lose them at any point along the way then the expectation falters. If we say we are a cheap, clean hotel but the air smells and there are hairs in the tub then the expectation of that customer is not aligned with our brand. It might not be irreparable, but the systems must be in place to convince that person that theirs was a singular experience. The receptionist at the hotel, the manager, the webmaster, the social media manager, whoever sees that complaint first must react quickly. And, of course, the hotel really must be cheap and clean the next time (and the next and the next and the next).

Love your questions, Chris!

Expectations of a brand's behavior initially come from what the brand delivers. From there, the interest is driven, much like the cliche "you can't miss what you've never had."

Consumers won't know exactly what they want until companies create it. Then consumers begin to relate and they demand more because it fits their realm of thought and lifestyle. They depend on what the brand delivers because there's value in the brand.

And if you value something, you're loyal to it. Although, comsumer options are so great, we may not be extremely loyal to one brand when it comes our spending. There's always a curiousity of other brands. I may not always eat at McDonald's but it has special place in heart:-) because as a brand I trust their behavior.

I agree with others, branding is about behavior, expectations, conditioning and much much more. But I also think that, at the end of the day, branding is about bringing companies (brands) to life. If a company was a person, what would he?she be like? Cool, smart, reliable, gentle, classy, friendly, young, fun, new age and so on. Associations like these then lead to relationships that are much stronger and long-lasting than any expectations/classical conditioning stuff. If I can associate with a brand on personal level, I'm sticking with it for a very-very long time.

I would fly 'Mighty Duck' airlines. But only to Disneyland, skiing, quick vacation destinations. Very Southwest Airlines with even more fun. I wouldn't want to fly them internationally.

Get this, I can't stand Disneyland. I never get what they promise. Happiest place on earth? I don't think so. I am profoundly miserable whenever I have to go to Disneyland. I loved it once when I was two years old. It never met my expectation again after that. Disneyland occurs as lot of excitement for a lot of headache and nonsense. Lol. Disney movies, however, get me 80% of the time. I still wouldn't miss the Disney brand if it were bought out. Weird. I barely relate Mickey Mouse to Disney anymore. I don't relate to the Brand, but often relate to ideas behind thier film products.

Don't know what that means.

Target attempted a brand switch in '06. Known for being a place where everyone could get decent quality items at a good price, they opened a Target Couture (pronounced Tar-zhay)image in LA. I honestly don't know how it worked out. I haven't heard anything, or it could be that I haven't been listening hard enough. What I do know is this, in my mind, Target took a risk. Their message went from bringing quality to the masses to bringing quality to a few and you would think that could make their business model suffer. Customers could have started thinking "If you really do need to pay a lot for quality, than what kind of crap have you been selling me? Maybe I should just go to WalMart?" I do think Target was smart in keeping their high-end venture so separate from their general stores. I also think it could have helped that they were offering more expensive items at the Target Couture. I do think that companies offering cheaper renditions of their quality items can suffer (i.e., Calphalon pans, Henckles knives). I follow brands due to expectation, expectations of quality (high or low) and service. (Let's not even get into what I call Brand Heredity - I buy it because my Mom bought it.) So I feel brand relies a lot on expectation.

Chris,
I'm still working on what kind of branding I want to apply to what it is I do. If it's too narrow a branding, then I'm stuck in that position. It it's too wide - I look like a jack of all trades, master of none.

I also think that companies need to have a more flexible brand as well. So perhaps a consistent type of service that they offer could be their brand (M and M's - great chocolate, Sprint - always there when you need us, just examples).

I also think branding online is different than branding in print/tv media - things move a lot quicker online. Are we keeping up with our audiences?

just my two cents..
Deb Brown
www.debworks.com

As a small business owner I've always said "Branding is for Kleenex, what I need is sales." Now I have a new thing to say - Branding is for Cattle. Love it. Seriously, trying to create brand identity for a micro-business takes too much time and too much money. It's better to put that effort into driving sales. Personal branding, on the other hand, is a horse of a different color (Wizard of Oz). You can control your personal brand and become "the guy who always ..." or "the woman who knows ..." and translate it to whatever your current endeavor. You know, kind of like that guy, Chris Brogan.

Your reputation is your brand. This is why line extensions are usually a bad idea. Like you said, nobody would want to fly McDonalds air. But companies like to use line extensions because they like using familiar brand names even when it doesn't work.

Laura Ries wrote something really good on this subject:
http://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/2008/11/its-t...

I think you need to talk to the good folks at National Geographic. I just read that they getting into video games.

We just talked about this recently in my Communication 305 class (Persuasion) at Clemson University. Brands/companies no longer just sell "products." Now, it is all about companies building a "brand identity" to create an image for everyone to associate them with. As you stated, this strategy can be disadvantageous due to the fact that once you create this desirable image it is hard to stray away from it if the company wishes to branch out. However, I think it is almost a necessity to create this identity. In a society where we are consumed daily by thousands of persuasive messages, the company would get lost if they did not have a certain image for audiences to remember them.

I do NOT want to have to spend my time selling. Good branding drives customers. I don't have a guy standing in my laundry detergent aile explaining the benefits, thank goodness.

The thing about McDonald's is that it ALWAYS takes responsibility for it's brand whether it's a winning brand or a current losing brand. Only McDonald's can survive Supersize me and Yes men and, and,and... and still have lunch lines out into the street without changing it's core menu.

It's all brand and consistency of commitment.

I see a brand as being reflect by the relationship a person has with it. It's the violation of that relationship which breaks a brand. This is why New Coke is such an amazing study. The testing data actually showed people preferred the taste of New Coke to Classic. The data indicated that Coke was doing "the right thing." The failure of New Coke was rooted in the violation of the relationship people had with the brand. They didn't want "new."

McDonald's airlines would be a variation of this. There is no relationship there.

And yet, McDonalds have been so successful by creating a consistent, easy to roll out experience; so why wouldn't they be able to do the same with an airline (if they got the prototype right in the first place that is!)? Are we confusing the concept by thinking about McDonalds food being served on the plane and thinking that defines the brand? Virgin launched offering a no frills service kind of like the McDonalds of the airline industry and it worked. Maybe the Richard Branson / Virgin 'make a success of nearly everything' brand is more transferable than that of a company with a specific product.

Or maybe it is just our own individual expectations that determine the brand anyway. So one person's McDonalds airline provides consistent, excellent, and therefore deemed to be safe, service; another provides cheap and cheerful, and therefore deemed to be unsafe, service.

So, yes I think it is about expected behaviour - but very much dependent on who is expecting the behaviour in the first place!

A brand is the perception a consumer has in their mind of you or your product.

Branding is the process on strengthening or weakening that perception.

A market place is the location consumers decide which brand to purchase/consume or associate with.

Marketing is the process of positioning your brand (hopefully at the expense of all other brands) as the dominant choice for consumption or association.

It is within Marketing we attribute the aspects of behavior in the market place, not the brand or branding.

Good Hunting,

I would accept a book recommendation from Ted Kennedy!

I think behaviour is just the manifestation of underlying core brand values. Brand connect with people on emotional and rational levels and people associate a set of values, and expectations with the specific experiences behaviors that they have when they engage with the brand. Many brand extensions (like your MacDonald airlines example) just don't fit with the experience and values you might associate with with that brand. Virgin made the leap from music to airlines because the underlying value set was about fun, excitement and hip experiences - whether music or travel experiences.

Sarah
http://sarahmontague.wordpress.com

Hey, Chris.
Great observation. I'm not sure if branding *is* a behavioral expectation, but certainly branding *creates* a behavioral expectation. It is certainly the biggest part of the practical application of branding.

The word competencies also comes to mind when I think of branding - the deep skills that a company uniquely holds. When you hear of a brand expanding into new products or markets, you probably think of their competencies first... do they know that space? Are they good at that?

McDonald's provides fast service; it is a known behavior associated with the brand. You expect that behavior, but is it their core competency? If McDonald's announced a drive-through oil change service would that make sense to you as a natural move for them? Not likely. Yes, "fast" is a behavior you expect from them, but not their core identity or competency.

So what if Bose announced its new mobile phone, what would you expect? Or what if Apple partnered with Porsche on the iRoadster? One of Apple's core competencies is user-centered interface design. Porsche's core competency is performance automotive engineering, but they are also really good at designing a remarkable end-user experience, like Apple.

In business school, they're teaching us that a brand is a perception. It's something usually intangible that is hard to summarize in words. So, it's not a stretch to say it is a behavioral expectation as well, as you have an "image" in your head that develops this perception expectation.

In higher education we struggle with developing our individual brands - and trying to put faces and voices to these perceptions being developed. Corporate brands have similar issues (Geico/Getgo, etc.). Can university's have "behaviors?"

I don't think behaviors are the main purpose of branding, but certainly play a big role.

Brand-building is conducted with the presumption that it will lead to more "purchase behaviors" such as buying and loyalty. It'd be hard to justify, otherwise.

And while I think it's useful to consider desired behaviors as part of the branding process, I struggle with how to square this with the "social media" tenets of transparency and relationship-building.

Some have said that the brand IS the relationship - and if so, isn't there a disconnect between the core values of social media and traditional model of "driving of behavior?"

I'll be diving into this topic on my new blog (which is not quite ready for prime time.)

One day I went shopping for vitamins and saw a Dove brand item on the shelf. It startled me to see the name of the soap I use attached to an item I consume. My first thought was to wonder what do they know about producing vitamins; my second thought was that they produce good soap and may also make good vitamins. They earned my trust once, and that fulfillment of promise made me open to trying them again.

McD's has been around a very long time now. If they put their name on a wrench, I'd check it out.

I agree with the statement. I think of it this way: a brand is to a company as character is to a person. With a person's character - once you know them - you know what you're going to get with them - for good or not.
What a lot of companies miss is how far choices and actions (again positive or negative) go to establish a brand in the minds of people. Brand is way beyond the right color, the right font, the right typeface. Brand is the whole of a companies actions, what kind of citizen they are in the world, CEO pay, etc.

Brands are the totality of expectations and experiences. Expectations relate to the promise a brand makes to its community, experience to the delivery. The two cannot be divorced. A promise must be consistently delivered upon, and expectations matched or even exceeded by experiences. I see that as the purpose of branding.

I think it is so important to push for brand behavior expectations. Isn't that what you are doing when you push for a stronger brand? Raising the bar in what people expect when they hear "Southwest Airlines" or another brand. It is a GOOD sign when people expect a higher level of performance from your brand. This goes right along with customer service ideas as well. When you go to WAMU, do you expect to get the very best service? If the folks handling WAMU's PR and brand are doing their job, then you should be expecting the very best service from the girl at the counter, the manager, etc. This is a new and different way of looking at what it means to strengthen a brand. Raise the bar for what people expect from your BRAND behavior. Great idea, great perspective.

Hi Chris.

Google, for example, is stretching its limits too hard by moving into the mobile business. The brand is associated with content not stuff. It may be all right in the short term, but it'll cause brand dillution in the long run...

It takes a lot of time to fix an idea inside the prospects mind. Why should we play with it?

I like very much Al & Laura Ries' point of views about extensions. At the end of the day, it's the concept of Positioning applied.

Thank you

Gabriel Rossi- Brazil

A large part of branding is setting expectations. There are some far more knowledgeable than myself about this topic, but I liken brands to human personalities.

You have a look and feel (logo, website, stationery, etc), a personality (Who do you speak with? What is the culture like? What does their website say? What language do they use?) and you have a demographic to place that look and feel and personality within (Has the company been around? What is their primary industry? What are their core competencies?).

With Virgin - Branson has done an amazing job of creating the expectation that Virgin WILL branch out. Virgin WILL create new companies, spawn new ideas, and experiment with new technologies. The expectation IS innovation.

McDonalds hasn't created the same personality, and innovation isn't something we associate with McDonald's. They can move into new areas, but it would require a leap of faith for the public to trust them in a new area, as their brand does not represent innovation. It's unexpected.

I think brands have safety zones. Much like you can try on that new style of clothing that isn't "tradionally" you, brands can move a bit and experiment, too. If it works (looks good, you should buy it!), then it sticks. If not, they return to center and begin anew.

Great post!

To begin with, yes. Brands are a set of expectations. Rather like setting the bar. When you're the company *doing* the branding, you're telling people what you stand for, what they can expect from you, and the contract you're inking with them for the long haul.

But a brand is a living, breathing thing. It's amorphous, and it splinters, changes, evolves based on the customers' *real* experiences with that brand. In other words, the brand becomes more about the delivery than the expectation. If you've ever been to Brand Tags, you know that Amazon is as much about "awesome" as it is "books". Budweiser is nearly as much "bad" as it is "beer".

Brands are collaborative. It's like an agreement between company and customer. Here's what we as the company want our brand to be. Here's what you as the customer say it is. The truth is always somewhere in between.

Amber,

I have a slightly different perspective about brands being between company and customer. I honestly think brands should be what they think instead of what we think. Even mixing both parts, We get a cross signal if we don't apply branding from the outside always.

A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service, or company. At the end of the day, a brand is defined by individuals, not by companies, markets etc... When enough people have the same gut feeling, then we have a brand.

Surely we can influence it by transmitting signals, but yur real brand is what THEY think.

Thanx.

Gabriel Rossi- Brazil

Gabriel,

To a great extent, I agree with you. But we need to have goals for what we want our brands to be. We need to understand what we're trying to achieve in order to have something to benchmark against. If *we* don't know what we stand for as a company, there's no way we'll ever be able to communicate it, or to appreciate the input and insights of our community to help us refine it. That's why I say the brand is setting the bar. It's sticking a flag in the ground and saying ok, here's what we want to bring to you.

The brand from the company standpoint is the start to the discussion, but it's not the endgame. How open we are to the discussion that ensues, well, that's another post entirely.

Amber

The idea that's working for me is that a brand is the some total of what your taget audience thinks regarding you, your business or product. I agree with Alisandar's sense of identity shaping that occurs through the consumer choice, and constantly see the affiliations folks are making in social media to play that out. To that end, the difficulty of branding is the effort to shape the thing that resides in mind (even if the choice a pair of shoes, with Grace Slick the issue : "Feed your head."

So, making a brand: the efforts to form the image of what you want folks to think.

As a media person for 30 years I can tell you this, most ad agencies totally miss the mark. The evidence is in how many ads are actually memorable, period! The good ones always stick with us.

Too many have not paid attention to the client, the customer, the consumer and just forge ahead and try to be funky creative, even if it totally does not relate to the product or the target, the consumer.

Keep it simple man! We all have some sort of ADHD in our distraction era. We all have it! We are multi-level multi-taskers. And the worse off for it!

Keep it simple "I'm lovin it" .. "It's the real thing" .. "Just do it" .. come to mind quickly. The more you expect the customer to do to figure out your message, the more they just fade away from you.

Marketing is not advertising, marketing is the research that becomes the fuel to do the ad properly & precious few do any serious marketing & thus ad campaigns fail over and over.

Research what the customer wants in a shoe, in a hat, a cell phone .. whatever. The common threads are likley the truest, purest ways to position yourself, provided your survey was broad enough.

It's just not complicated! I didn't say simple was easy, but simple is usually brilliant!

Mike,

One of my favourite books of all times is called "Brand Simple". The argument made by the author is very much related to what you have stated above. Basically, the best brands keep it short, simple and straight. Why? There's too much clutter nowadays and consumers want brands to work as short-cuts for their buying decisions.

By applying similar brand names in a complete different category, aren't companies missing exactly the point?

When i think about MCDonalds, fast-food comes to my mind. Rolex is watch. Coca-cola is cola. Kotler is Marketing...

I reckon that the fundamental principles of branding hasn't changed with social media. We still have to listen to our costumers, be close to them and keep our promises. Also, the digital landscape hasn't changed one of the most important laws of Marketing: Focus.

It's just an opinion...

Cheers

Gabriel

I tend to oversimplify things... But I think branding is a set of rules, boundaries, and criteria for how a company should behave and respond publicly and internally.

In discussions there always seems to be a lot of grey area with brands and branding. Design is part branding, marketing is part branding, copywriting is part branding, etc. That's way too complicated!

If there was a good brand "document", or "manifesto", or whatever you want to call it that all designers, marketers, copywriters, interior designers, and so on all played by, there would be a consistent message across the board. And the designers can be designers, marketers can be marketers, HR can be HR, and they could all work with a lot less confusion and ambiguity.

Simple as that! Making that "document" would be extremely hard, but if you have a good reason for being a company and stayed disciplined to your own brand rules, the expectations should work themselves out. Your "brand" would be strong.

In my opinion anyone responsible for a brand would be more of a policing role. Serving the company and it's fans, protecting the company and it's fans, and enforcing the rules of the brand for the company and it's fans.

Well here's another rant of mine & I think it relates. The amount of outsourcing is doing us all in. And I don't mean to suggest we defer to a protectionism mode at all. But something just has to give!

I mean come on, the bean counters have slashed everything the "company" is about these days & that includes the heart, soul and company spirit. All to save a dollar. This mentality is now going to cost everyone big time.

CEO's used to always come from sales, hey who knew the product and the company mission better than the people charged with selling it to the street every day. Now all CEO's used to be CFO's .. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

CFO's are spreadsheet guys & gals & good at what they do, running a company is NOT what they do! They should advise CEO's and that's it. Someone has to be challenged to maintain the vision & mission of the company. That vision & mission if you will, is not about dollars. I mean it is but that can't be the only mission! It's new products, customers, opening new markets, 5 year strategic plans etc. it's alot more than just budgets!

What's this got to do with outsourcing you say? Giving the reins of the company to an accountant is like outsourcing the entire plan and vision to a foreign country. Missions & visions are very foreign to the bean counter. Ok Ok so I'm ranting, deal with it!

So the accountant mentality has found reason to outsource virtually every aspect of a company. Reducing the head count as an example is not always in the best interest of growth and sustained profitability.

Again, keeping it simple .. the more you outsource, the more control you in fact give up. Now isn't that brilliant! Give up control and in house continuity in order to save a dollar. It's sheer madness I say.

Bring marketing & advertising back "in house" and I'll bet you a dollar, they will spend less and get more results. Ad agencies will never ever know what you know about the company, how could they? The feel, the spirit, the history, the good the bad and the ugly. Staffers know this stuff!

You want to rebrand, a better brand, an enhanced brand .. ask your own people for ideas and you`ll be amazed what they say.

I am a huge fan of professional third independent party coaching. But only limited to coaching and NOT running the business!

Chris, though I agree with your list; branding is subjective. Whay may work on one consumer does not wokr on another. It's like politics. OR MotrinMoms.

I am at GreenBuild this week, and though consumers are being smacked daily with green branding efforts; in a research piece shared today in a session, when consumers were asked if they were green 49% said yes; when pushed further to name a product only 21% could come up with one; when they were pushed even further only 7% could name a "green" brand. It's possible to think the brand wave is gone and only the historical brands have a chance to take over airlines and hotels. If I were travelling with my kids, a McDonalds Hotel might be as good as a Marriot, as long as they had a pool and McNuggets.

Maybe it is time to think less about brand and more about what that brand does for the customer; what do they need? What will make them feel comfortable happy and secure? What will embrace them?

In terms of green building; the industry can't survive on brand...they need tangible benefits they understand.

Kimberly Lancaster
www.CasterBlog.com / www.greenlifesmartlifeblog.com

What a great conversation!

I'm still convinced, however, that the answer to Chris's original question -- is the purpose of branding to manage people’s expectations of our brand’s behavior? -- is that behavior -- yours, your customers, and your friends and critics -- IS the brand.

Branding is the outcome of those behaviors, whether as explicit narrative or color commentary. It's organic, real-time, and constantly changing. And it's not a communications or marketing conceit. It's a reality phenomenon, not the product of anyone's imagination.

So talking about 'the brand' as if it's something with which people engage, or is somehow outside or apart from what they or a company might do (a set of rules, standards, emotional associations, whatever), is kind of like saying that the Universe is 'a thing' instead of being EVERYTHING.

I'm also fascinated by how our own experiences and language factor into this debate. We marketers tend to see circumstances in terms of communications and mental states because that's what we know. There are such a diverse range of definitions for 'brand' evidenced in this string, and lots of different definitions for the definitions we use.

Did anybody here ever read a short book called "Flatland?" I ask because I sometimes wonder if we're missing other dimensions of brands that we simply can't see because of our communications bent.

Anyway, I'm learning a lot from this conversation, and I'm honored that Chris referenced my book at the start of this give-and-take.

"Branding is the outcome of those behaviors, whether as explicit narrative or color commentary. It’s organic, real-time, and constantly changing. And it’s not a communications or marketing conceit. It’s a reality phenomenon, not the product of anyone’s imagination."

Jonathan, I think I'm going to put that on my wall in Sharpie marker. You articulated beautifully what I was muddling through above. Thank you.

Branding is really only about behavior, whether it's a corporate brand or your personal brand.

Your brand is granted to you based on other people's experience with you. Good brands manage this on purpose.

more here: http://azzarellogroup.com/blog/2008/10/24/whose...

Chris,

Great article. I have been struggling with this very thought and your perspective has framed up the context of branding in a simple way. This is especially valuable when we think of permission marketing and the ways in which different brands attempt to reach people.

I also appreciate the conversation...the brand is perhaps less about managing the expectations, than reflecting the consumers behaviour....good stuff.

Thanks again.

Chris, I must admit, I don't get why you wrote this. I have helped more small-to-midsize companies and individuals with something to sell (such as authors or consultants), define a brand and use their branding & messaging to communicate messages of quality and credibility. The nicest people in the world may run and work for a company, but if they don't present themselves as professionally as the competition (at least) and more creatively as their top competitors (to win deals), few people will know or care about who's behind the company.

People have tried to use the word "brand" to describe things that are no more than personal attributes. A great brand is made up of many components, and I think without the visuals and creativity of the brands that drive markets and industry, the world would be a far duller place. Imagine Apple without some brand definition... it's control, restraint, and unique attributes cannot be compared to a mark on a cow's behind.

Like I said, I'm trying to figure out why you even posed the question, and what the question is, because I place a lot of value on branding and know how much it's worth to the clients I serve and projects I work on.

In an exchange with Kris C she sent me to Wikipedia for the definition of brand - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand - and I was drawn to the statement "convey the essence of a company, product or service".

Then I thought about Chris' conclusion: "Is that what we can sum up as the main purpose of branding? Managing people’s expectations of our brand’s behavior? "

And it seemed to me that creating a particular brand, as defined within each consumer's mind, is a three-fold process. The 'essence' that the company wants the public to see/hear/believe, the customer's personal experience with the products or services, and third party validation or criticism from friends, press, etc.

So, yes, branding from a marketing perspective is about managing/creating expectations by conveying the 'essence' of the product or service, but in the end, customer expectations will be affected most by experience.

As branding becomes more important to business success, companies are realizing that it takes many people to build a brand. It takes most of the employees, the company’s partners, its customers, the media, and the communities it operates in. You can no longer outsource your branding to an advertising agency expect to build an authentic, robust brand.

Branding is indeed a Marketing concept. If we separate Branding from Marketing, we'll be counting out the book which represents the beggining of Modern Marketing (The Practice of Management- Drucker- 1954). As Drucker taught us, the only reason for any company or brand to exist is to organize itself based on consumer's needs and perspectives.

A brand is a (relevant + differentiated) promise inside the prospect's mind. A Brand is not what you say it is. it's what THEY say it is". Brands only exist from a Marketing perspective. Otherwise, they become schizophrenic just like we've seen many brands from the automotive industry, for example.

Thank you.

Gabriel Rossi- Brazil

At its core, "branding" speaks to an identity. On the outside, you have the logo, trade dress, etc, which are basically signals that "hey, this product comes from such and such company." Through experimentation, repetition and habit, we all come to form expectations based on our experiences with that brand, whether personal or through others. The combination of these expectations and signals form the instinctual basis behind our expectations of a brand. Add to that marketing and messaging, and you can add a layer of perceive quality.

Example: Cartier, Porsche and Apple sell quality, sexy, cool, classy, smart. McDonald's, Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart and Hyunday sell value.

The marketing/messaging/packaging creates the image. The imprint, if you will. Your experiences (either personal or by proxy) create the context for the imprint, and either validate it or debunk it. The logo simply serves as the vessel for those two elements of brand expectations. The chalice, if you will.

I see where you're going with your thought thought process, but branding is not a behavioral expectation.

Great photo though. ;)

I think of branding as the "pavlov's law" of business. It is training your customers to think of you in a certain way. It takes time, but if that message is consistent, it makes it easy for your customers to know what to expect from your business.